


The Gift of the Really Old Guy

by Neftzer_nettlestonenell



Category: Highlander - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Gift Giving, Inspired by The Gift of the Magi - O. Henry, The Methuselah Stone, Winter Solstice, re-write of O.Henry's Gift of the Magi for Methos and Rebecca and the Methuselah Stone(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-01-11
Updated: 2000-01-11
Packaged: 2019-01-27 08:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12577880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neftzer_nettlestonenell/pseuds/Neftzer_nettlestonenell
Summary: It's Solstice in a long ago time (circa 600 BCE), and Methos goes shopping.





	The Gift of the Really Old Guy

THE GIFT OF THE REALLY OLD GUY  
_The Sword and the Stone_  
A Solstice Story by O. Henry and A. Neftzer

* * *

One dinar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved back one and two at a time by bulldozing the tinker and the medicine man and the butcher until her face burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Rebecca counted it. One dinar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Solstice.

There was nothing to do but to kick the nearest furniture-- a shabby little couch--for all it was worth. So Rebecca did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that much of life is made up of kicking, crying, and struggling with the urge to give in, with struggles predominating. 

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A typical dwelling of the time. Sparsely furnished, it did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad. 

By the doorposts outside was a letter-slot into which no letter would go, and a hanging bell from which no mortal finger could coax a pleasant chime. Also appertaining thereunto was a wooden plaque bearing the sign of, "Methos of Ur." 

The "of Ur" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its owner had been in possession of a much larger financial base. Now, when the income was shrunk to a size all but beyond recognition, it seemed to be thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unfriendly "f U." But whenever Methos of Ur came home and through his own door, he was just as often called "Thosha" and greatly hugged by the home's mistress, already introduced to you as Rebecca. Which is all very good. 

Rebecca finished her tantrum and rubbed her hands at her cheeks in an effort to remove all evidence of such. She stood by the window and looked out dully to the grey street in the grey city. Tomorrow would be Solstice, and she had very little with which to buy Methos a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twelve dinars a month doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only one dinar and eighty-seven cents to buy a present for Methos. Her Methos. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Methos. 

There was a fountain within the open courtyard of the house. Perhaps you have seen a such a fountain and water trough. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing her reflection in a rapid sequence of quickly stolen looks, obtain a fairly accurate conception of her looks. Rebecca, being slender, had mastered the art. 

Suddenly she whirled from the fountain and stood before the goddess' statue. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled up her hair and began to work at the old knot in the leather thong that always circled her neck. 

Now, there were two possessions of the Ur household in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Methos' sword that had been his since the time of his father--almost two-thousand years ago. The other was Rebecca's two crystals. Had the queen of Sheba been staying in the house across the way, Rebecca would have stood in full view of the window, polishing her necklace just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the street cleaner, with all his treasures piled up in the dung cart, Methos would have pulled his sword every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy. 

So now Rebecca's two beautiful crystal shards hung shining like long-forgotten icicles that grow high in the mountains. Not only did their beauty serve to enhance the lucidity of her own skin, their power (for they were powerful) she believed to be the source of her own abilities. She tied the thong again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood, battling her uncertainty. 

With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the two steps onto the street. 

Where she stopped the glyph on the seller's cart read: "Sorcha. Powers; mystical and divination." Rebecca pushed past a hanging curtain, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sorcha." 

"Will you buy my crystals?" asked Rebecca, knowing she had seen the woman's interested gaze on them in the market only moments ago. 

"I buy such things," said Madame, pleasantly avoiding any hint of her earlier interest. "Take your necklace off and let's have a sight at the looks of them." 

Out came the brilliant shards. 

"Twenty dinar," said Madame, eyeing the stones with a practiced eye. 

"Give it to me quick," said Rebecca. 

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the market for Methos' present. 

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Methos and no one else. There was no other like it at any of the vendors, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a bronze-alloy scabbard, simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Sword. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Methos'. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dinars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the eighty-seven cents. With that scabbard for his sword Methos might be properly armed in any company. As fine and grand as the sword was, he had to wear it in an old oiled leather sheath that he used in place of a scabbard. 

When Rebecca reached home her initial intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out several other pretty--though valueless--stones she had and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. 

Within a few minutes her hands had secured those to the leather thong in place of the crystals. She looked at her reflection outside in the trough long, carefully, and critically. 

* * *

The wine was poured and the pot was on the back of the fire hot and ready to cook the stew. 

Methos was never late. Rebecca held the scabbard in her hand and balanced on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his foot on the steps, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying silent little prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered, directing her eyes heavenward: "Please, don't let him think I'm mad for selling the crystals." 

The door opened and Methos stepped in and closed it. As usual, to a stranger's eye he looked thin and very serious. To Rebecca eyes, nothing had looked better or more beautiful all day. He stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Rebecca, narrowing, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it worried her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face. 

Rebecca left her place at the table and went for him. 

"Thosha," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I sold the crystals because I couldn't have lived through Solstice without giving you a present." 

They met, and his arms circled her waist, but absently. 

"It doesn't matter," she continued, still breathless to explain. "Their power was probably just an old lie, anyway. I just had to do it. Don't worry. Wish me a `Good Solstice!' Old Man, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice--what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you." And she kissed him. 

"You've sold the crystals?" asked Methos, laboriously, pulling away slightly from her embrace, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor. "Both of them?" 

"Took them off my necklace and sold them," said Rebecca, still not certain what he was driving at, with that peculiar look on his face. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm not powerless without them, am I?" 

Methos looked about the room curiously, out of the corner of his eye. 

"You say your crystals are gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy, his hands coming up to her shoulders, his fingers beginning to trace the leather cord down to where the twin crystals had always hung. 

"You needn't look for them," said Rebecca. "They're sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Solstice Eve, my heart. Be good to me, they went for you." 

Out of his trance Methos seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded Rebecca, his broad chest and arm span all but causing her to disappear into his shape. He kissed the top of her head several times, its red hair never having looked more precious to him, and drew an oddly shaped package from his tunic which he thrust casually upon the table. 

"Don't make any mistake, Becca," he said, "about me. Don't think there's anything in the way of accessories or a change of clothes that could make me love you any less. But unwrap that package and you may see why you had me going a while at first." 

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic gasp of joy; and then, alas! a quick change to silence. 

For there lay the pieces of The Methuselah Stone--the legendary crystal, of which Rebecca's two shards were said to be a part. The stone that promised to turn its mortal possessor immortal, and its immortal possessor invincible. Her heart had craved and searched for it without the least hope of possession. And now, it was hers, but the pieces that should have completed it, caused it to take on its full power, were gone, sold to a traveling mystic. 

But she hugged them to her bosom anyway, and at length she was able to look up with dimmed eyes and a smile and say: "Perhaps someday I can get them back." 

And then Rebecca leaped up like a singed cat crying, "Oh, oh!" 

Methos had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly across her open palms. The dull precious metal seemed to flash bright with the reflection of her ardent spirit. 

"Isn't it a dandy, Methos? I hunted all over market to find it. You'll have to wear it everywhere now. Give me your sword. I want to see how it looks in it." 

Instead of obeying, Methos sprawled himself across the couch, put his hands under the back of his head and smiled. 

"Becca," said he, deciding to explain as briefly as possible, "let's put our Solstice presents away and keep them a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the sword to buy the rest of the stone. And now suppose you put the stew on." 

The magi, it is said, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who, almost six-hundred years after our story, brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They supposedly invented the art of giving presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones. Here I have tried to relate to you the uneventful chronicle of two of history's foolish children who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days, and any that may come, let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. For truly, they are the magi. 

~The End~

 **DISCLAIMERS::** Methos and Rebecca are owned by Panzer/Davis.  
This story is a re-telling, with only slight alterations, of the classic  
Christmas story, _The Gift of the Magi_ by O. Henry, although I doubt that in this incarnation it is anything that he would recognize.  
**TIMELINE::** Takes place about 600 BCE or so, at an indistinct location.  


**Author's Note:**

>  **NIT-PICKS::** Yes, the monetary units are nuts. I have substitued "generic" denominations for the coinage. Dinars and pennies.  
>  Also, according to the _Watcher's Guide_ , and, I daresay, common sense, it is unlikely Methos and Rebecca were  
> using the names we have come to know them by--however, for such a brief story, it seemed awkward and unnecessary  
> to saddle them (and readers) with aliases.
> 
> I have always wondered why, if at one time Rebecca had all the pieces of the Methuselah Stone (and thus potential invincibility) she would have ever chosen to split it up among her students. (But then likewise I wonder why Amanda and Methos weren't having the river dragged the day after it took that header off the bridge...) As Yakut says, seems like there would be some pretty powerful, immortal fish swimming around in the Seine.  
> Also, I like the idea of Rebecca and Methos together, if only for a little while :)


End file.
